CHAPTER VI 



THE DATE 



Plates IX-X 



"HONOR your maternal aunt, the palm," said the prophet 

 Muhammad to the Muslims ; " for it was created from the clay 

 left over after the creation of Adam (on whom be peace and the 

 blessings of God!)." And again, "There is among the trees 

 one which is preeminently blessed, as is the Muslim among men ; 

 it is the palm." 



It is in this reverential aspect that the Semitic world has 

 always regarded the date palm; and with sound reason, for 

 its economic importance to the desert dweller as the source 

 of both food and shelter is even greater than that of the coconut 

 palm to the Polynesian. 



Only in recent years, however, have oriental methods of 

 date-culture been scientifically examined and tested by horti- 

 culturists. By far the greater part of this work must be 

 credited to investigators in the United States. The first 

 modern importation to this country was of palms rooted in 

 tubs, shipped from Egypt to California in 1890. Better methods 

 of shipping offshoots were gradually worked out, and intro- 

 ductions from all parts of the world have been made in ever- 

 increasing numbers in the last quarter of a century. 



Meanwhile, continued study has been given to methods of 

 culture, with the result that the problems of the rooting of 

 offshoots and the ripening of the fruit, which were at first 

 serious sources of loss, have been brilliantly solved, and many 

 others adequately dealt with. This work has been done by 



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